In a series of sound installations at sites around Christchurch, Olivia Webb will activate community spaces where buildings have been lost or relocated since the earthquakes.

In Lyttelton, Mairehau and central Christchurch, Webb has invited church-goers and local residents to form "community choirs" to learn and develop a piece of choral music chosen by the artist. As she records these rehearsals from start to finish and over several weeks, Webb explores both the formal and social nature of a choir. In subsequent recordings, formal qualities–the individual voice, singular and unadorned which joins in chorus with others, the harmony and arrangements which give body–also act as metaphor: voices lived in concert and collaboration describe a community at work.

Webb's “borrowed acoustics” from these singing sessions will form the basis of a one-day performance, an ambient soundscape that will take place across sites of these former churches on Sunday 29 June. Voices Project seeks to create a live monument that re-energises these spaces for the parishes and community groups involved and documents the social architecture with which small communities reform and adapt in response to changing environments.

This project has received additional support from Creative New Zealand with a Creative Communities grant.